Regional uncertainty of GOSAT XCO<sub>2</sub> retrievals in China: Quantification and attribution

Abstract

Abstract. The regional uncertainty of XCO 2 (column-averaged dry air mole fraction of CO 2 ) retrieved using different 14 algorithms from the Greenhouse gases Observing SATellite (GOSAT) and its attribution are still not well understood. This 15 paper investigates the regional performance of XCO 2 within a band of 37°N~ 42°N segmented into 8 cells in a grid of 5° 16 from west to east (80°E ~120°E) in China, where there are typical land surface types and geographic conditions. The former 17 include the various land covers of desert, grassland and built-up areas mixed with cropland, and the latter include 18 anthropogenic emissions that tend to be small to large from west to east, including those from the megacity of Beijing. with a high albedo and dust aerosols, moreover, demonstrates that further improvement is still necessary in such regions, 37 even though many algorithms have endeavored to minimize the effects of aerosols and albedo. 38 39

An Assessment of Anthropogenic CO2 Emissions by Satellite-Based Observations in China

“…From Figure 8 a, it can be found that the dXCO 2 in western area, the desert area of Xinjiang, shows high values even if there are much less anthropogenic emission over this area as shown in Figure 4 b. This is likely resulted in the uncertainty of ACOS XCO 2 retrievals in desert which has been indicated by Bie et al [ 34 ].…”